FOR YOUR HEALTH: Eat Beets to Get Back on Your Feet!

by Dr. Stephanie Rubino, ND

Eat your veggies! This well-established advice is an essential part of our daily nutrition habits, and for good reason. Rich in vitamins, minerals, and important phytochemicals, abundant vegetable intake promotes health and reduces chronic disease risk. Among the various vegetables available, beetroots have gained scientific attention in recent years.

Low in calories and fat, beetroots are also a good source of protein and dietary fibre. Although beetroots have a high carbohydrate and sugar content, the body can readily convert these compounds into energy. Research has noted the role of beetroots in supporting physical performance, vascular health, cardiorespiratory disorders, and diabetes, thanks to vital bioactive compounds listed below:

Vitamins (C, B1, B6, A, K, E, plus β-carotene);
Minerals (calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, selenium, zinc);
Nitrates, Betalains and Polyphenols.

Beetroots are some of the highest dietary sources of nitrates, a compound also found in other vegetables such as spinach, lettuce, celery, and radish. The body can convert dietary nitrates into nitric oxide, a signaling molecule essential for health. One study found that beetroot juice supplementation led to a 21% increase in nitric oxide levels 45 minutes after consumption. That’s impressive!

Nitric oxide has been shown to relax and dilate blood vessels, improve blood flow, reduce blood pressure, and increase nutrient and oxygen delivery to the heart, brain, and muscles. Additional benefits of nitric oxide include immune function support, glucose and calcium homeostasis, and regulation of the mitochondria, our energy powerhouses.

Our body’s ability to produce nitric oxide decreases with age, increasing our risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. However, increased dietary intake of nitrates with beetroot juice has been shown to influence blood pressure. In one systematic review, the efficacy of beetroot juice supplementation was associated with significantly lower levels of blood pressure. An additional review of studies looking at the health benefits of beetroot juice found that because of their support of blood pressure, beets “should be promoted as a key component of a healthy lifestyle” in healthy and hypertensive individuals.

Beetroot juice is associated with significantly lower levels of blood pressure.

High nitrate levels in beetroot juice have also been investigated for their sport-enhancing benefits, especially in endurance activities. Nitrates can impact other factors such as oxygen uptake, blood flow, platelet aggregation, heart rate, cardiac output, and performance. Nitric oxide supports the more efficient use of oxygen in the body, thereby making beetroots a great choice for athletes and anyone with an active and demanding lifestyle. Research also points to the benefits of beetroot juice supplementation for individuals with peripheral artery disease, helping them to exercise with less pain and at higher workloads for longer time periods during individual training sessions.

Betalains are another important active compound in beetroots that possess antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant benefits, helping to support health conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases, asthma, arthritis, intestinal inflammation, and diabetes.

Add beetroots to your life.

Beetroots have great potential to be used as a medicinal food, and supplementation has been described as an easy, cost-effective, and evidence-based strategy to reduce blood pressure and support other positive health outcomes. Enjoy this superfood on its own, or generously add it to salads, soups, or smoothies. Fermented beetroot supplements are especially beneficial – the traditional food preservation technique of fermentation helps improve digestibility and nutrient bioavailability for overall health.

Dr. Stephanie Rubino operates a general naturopathic practice with a focus on women’s health, and digestive health. She has a special interest in educating the public and other health professionals about a range of health topics and natural health product issues.

THE BEST VIEW: Snapshots

by Norma Best Boucher

After supper yesterday when my friends and I were walking, we saw first, an osprey, then a hawk, and bringing up the rear a black bird chasing the other two.

The osprey landed on the bank of the retention pond only to find the hawk swooping down upon him. They both took flight with the black bird literally on their tails. The osprey and hawk flew off in opposite directions. With those birds gone, the black bird returned to the tree where he most likely was guarding a nest.

There was a lot of action and noise for a few seconds.

I do believe there is definitely a lesson to be learned from this David and two Goliaths’ battle.

* * * * * *

We have a new “homemade” donut shop that just opened near my house. I mean within walking distance.

A neighbor gave me a sample, a mochi donut, which was the best donut I have ever eaten. So, of course, I had to go to the new shop. Mochi donuts are only sold on the weekends. This was Monday, so I bought a coconut donut.

When I saw the coconut atop the donut, I immediately thought of Harris Bakery coconut cream donuts. Today’s coconut donut was good but not Harris Bakery good.

I will return Saturday for a Mochi donut.

* * * * * *

When retired people panic:

The books I put on hold at different times at the library have all come in at the same time – Today!

AGH!

I hope some of these are the DVD’s I ordered.

* * * * * *

OMG! Another library notice – Another book is in, either the fourth or the fifth. I have lost count.

This is either a “horn of plenty” or “When it rains, it pours.”

Can you believe this?

How many books/DVDs have I actually requested?

Another retiree problem – I don’t remember. The exact total of books reserved isn’t yet in my long-term memory.

I ponder this dilemma.

You know, I go for days with nothing exciting happening.

I think that I am going to savor this moment of drama.

* * * * * *

When I went to eat at a fast food restaurant today, I hit a roadblock, literally. I drove on the third lane circling the building bypassing the drive thru windows and was halted by a rope across the pathway. I wouldn’t have cared, but there was no sign warning about this blocked roadway. Luckily, when I had to back up, there was no one else behind me.

When I ordered my lunch at the inside counter, I reported, to no avail, the possibly dangerous dilemma that cars were encountering.

With my lunch I sat by a window that overlooked the questionable parking lot area where several cars went in and then backed out of the roped off area. At one point three cars were caught together and backed up in a rather chaotic strategy.

The climax of my lunch was when a Waste Management truck passed by, could not reach the trash receptacle, and backed up with the very loud backup alarm catching everyone’s attention including the drive-thru customers who could not yell loudly enough to order over the loud alarm.

I finished my lunch, grabbed my book, which I had not even opened, and left the building. I went to my car, which I had parked a very long way away. I was careful as the parking lot had become an obstacle course with my dodging cars that were still going and retreating in that blocked lane.

The dodging of cars was not the only problem.

The odor from the Waste Management truck still lingered in the air.

Do you remember when we were young, and our mothers gave us the mail addressed “Occupant?” How I loved getting that mail. I don’t know if I even knew what the word “Occupant” meant, but I rushed to the mailbox for “my” mail.

Now the “Occupant “reads “Resident,” and there is so much “Resident” mail that I have to take a bag to the mailbox to collect it all.

One good thing, though, is that I now know the difference between yesterday’s “Occupant” and today’s “Resident.”

Today’s “Resident” means I pay the bills.

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Fred Bonnie, Lionel Barrymore, Ronald Reagan

Fred Bonnie book

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Fred Bonnie

Bridgton native Fred Bonnie (1945-2000) attended a two-room schoolhouse, in North Bridgton, until his father’s death in 1954 and the family’s move to Portland. He graduated in 1964 from Cheverus High School and in 1971 with honors from the University of Vermont.

Mr. Bonnie moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where he became gardening editor for Southern Living Magazine for a number of years and taught writing courses at the Uni­versity of Alabama.

He wrote novels, collections of short stories and books on gardening and best expressed his beginnings as a writer and his thematic concerns in two paragraphs found in the author biographies section of the 1989 anthology Maine Speaks:

“Growing up in Maine had a lot to do with my becoming a writer. As a child, I was indoctrinated with the Natives-versus-Outsiders frame of mind. Complaining about the outsiders has become the state sport. In Portland, I was exposed to a broad range of human types. Portland is small, but has some people most of us would call weird. A port city tends to have street people, some interesting, some just pitiful. But decades before the street people gained national news attention, they were common in downtown Portland.

“As a part-time dishwasher in a downtown restaurant when I was in high school, I observed at close range the types of people John Steinbeck and Erskine Caldwell were writing about in the 1930s and ‘40s. I write about people trying to deal with life. I’ve always sympathized with underdogs. I hope I always do.”

In a short story, The State Meet, and in keeping with Fred Bonnie’s interest in, and compassion for, the underdogs of society and the ever-present undercurrents of indescribable anxieties intruding into the inner emotional lives of these underdogs, Fred Bonnie’s gift for connecting Maine’s at times not so beautiful landscape with the terrors of a teenage boy on a very long bus ride from Portland to a state cross country race at an unnamed University near Bangor is conveyed in the following passage-

“By the time the bus reached Bangor, the sky was grayer and colder. Rain seemed certain. Daniel hated running in the rain, with the paths muddy and the grassy fields like swamps. The drive from Bangor to the University field house was short. They arrived long before Daniel could accept being there. He was the last one to leave the bus.”

On May 13, 2000, Fred Bonnie died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident three days earlier. He was 54.

Lionel Barrymore

Lionel Barrymore

An MGM/Longines Symphonette LP features the great actor Lionel Barrymore (1878-1954) portraying Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens justly immortal A Christmas Carol. Barrymore conveyed a presence in that role that, for me, was only surpassed by Alastair Sims in the 1951 black and white English film version, although others such as Reginald Owens in the 1937 MGM American version; Mister Magoo in the early ‘60s cartoon; and George C. Scott in one made for TV during the 1980s, each scored points as the miser turned kind man in the space of a few hours.
Side 2 has David Rose and his orchestra doing 12 Xmas carols in nicely old-fashioned arrangements with lots of strings and quite the change from Rose’s brassy 1960s megahit, The Stripper.

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

In the on-going survey of former presidents, I shall deal with Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) quickly and concisely.

A. His last film as a mobster in the 1964 made for TV, The Killers, with co-stars John Cassavetes, Claude Akins, Lee Marvin, Clu Gulagher and Angie Dickinson was riveting.

B. His brokering of a treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev remains a fine example of diplomacy, good will and friendship with a former Premier of the former Soviet Union and an ideological adversary.

C. His courage in writing a farewell letter to the American people when he was beginning his downslide with dementia and Alzheimer’s.

SMALL SPACE GARDENING: Dress up the holidays with succulent plants

A succulent wreath placed around a candle makes a festive holiday centerpiece. (photo courtesy of MelindaMyers.com)

by Melinda Myers

Many people are opting for more natural elements in their holiday displays and those that easily blend with their home décor. Popular succulent plants fit this trend whether decorating your home, setting a festive table, or giving as a gift. You and your guests will enjoy the easy care of succulents and the beauty they provide beyond the holidays.

Small-scale cacti and succulents provide a multitude of opportunities for use in holiday celebrations. Just select containers that complement, but don’t overpower their charm.

Use them to dress up the table by making them into place cards for your guests. Plant individual succulents in a small clay pot and set one by each place setting. Include the guest’s name or holiday wish on a plant tag set in the pot or written on the container. Send them home with your guests to enjoy for months to come.

Repurpose holiday mugs, champagne glasses, bottles and other items into succulent planters. Fill whatever container you choose with a well-drained cacti and succulent mix and display it on beverage or serving tables and trays. Just be careful not to overwater since the container you choose may lack drainage holes.

Empty wine bottles also make fun planters to display any time of the year. You will need to cut a large opening or several smaller holes into the side of the wine bottle or you may opt to buy one that is pre-cut. Fill the bottle with a cacti and succulent mix. The wine bottle planter can be displayed on its side but needs support to prevent it from rolling off the table. One simple method uses two corks and strong wire to create a cradle for your bottle garden. You can also plant just the bottom of the wine bottle and stand it up for a different look. Or consider drilling several holes in the side of the bottle. Plant small succulents in the holes. Secure the plants in place with a bit of sphagnum moss or glue if needed to hold the plants in place once the bottle is set upright.

Create a centerpiece for gatherings by planting them in a shallow container. Their unique shapes and colors blend nicely with any décor. Or display individual potted specimens in the container to enjoy throughout the evening. When the party is over, each guest can pick a plant to take home.

You won’t need much space to enjoy the subtle colors and dramatic forms of these drought-tolerant plants. Skip the seasonal greenery and use succulents to dress up candle displays. Create a terrarium of succulents using any clear glass container with an open top or lid set ajar. Succulents do not thrive in the humid conditions of closed containers.

Take it one step further and create a succulent tree. Fill a cone-shaped wire frame with moist sphagnum moss. Use cuttings or small plants to cover the frame. You may need to expand the opening to fit the roots through the wires and into the moss.

Include the name and care directions when sending plants home with guests. This makes it easier for the recipient to keep their gift thriving once it arrives home. Suggest they keep it near a sunny window where temperatures are a bit cooler and free of hot and cold air drafts.

Water succulents thoroughly and only when the soil is dry. Pour off any excess water that collects in the saucer. Avoid overwatering plants growing in containers that lack drainage holes. As the days lengthen and the light intensity increases, the plants will need more frequent watering. Fertilize once or twice during the time the plants are actively growing.

Be sure to keep a few succulents for yourself. A succulent centerpiece is a great addition to any gathering at any time of the year.

Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including the recently released Midwest Gardener’s Handbook, 2nd Edition and Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses “How to Grow Anything” instant video and DVD series and the nationally syndicated Melinda’s Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine. Myers’ website is www.MelindaMyers.com.

SCORES & OUTDOORS: The northern cardinal: bird of the season

Roland D. Halleeby Roland D. Hallee

One of my wife’s favorite birds is the northern cardinal. We’ve had a nesting pair hanging around our house for a couple of years now, and we both enjoy watching the brilliant red male go about its business. The northern cardinal is also synonymous with winter, and adorns many a Christmas card.

That has not always been the case.

One of our most popular birds, the cardinal is the official state bird of no fewer than seven eastern states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. Abundant in the Southeast, it has been extending its range northward for decades, and it now brightens winter days with its color and its whistled song as far north as southeastern Canada. Feeders stocked with sunflower seeds may have aided its northward spread. West of the Great Plains, the Cardinal is mostly absent, but it is locally common in the desert Southwest.

Widespread and abundant, having expanded its range over the last century or more, the current numbers are probably stable. It inhabits woodland edges, thickets, suburban gardens, towns, desert washes. Found in a wide variety of brushy or semi-open habitats in the East, from forest clearings and swamps to city parks, almost wherever there are some dense bushes for nesting. It forages mostly while hopping on the ground or in low bushes, sometimes higher in trees. They readily come to bird feeders, where it favors sunflower seeds.

The male Northern Cardinal is perhaps responsible for getting more people to open up a field guide than any other bird. They have a a shade of red you can’t take your eyes off. Even the brown females sport a sharp crest and warm red accents. Cardinals don’t migrate and they don’t molt into a dull plumage, so they’re still breathtaking in winter’s snowy backyards. In summer, their sweet whistles are one of the first sounds of the morning.

Both parents feed nestlings. Young leave the nest about 9 – 11 days after hatching. Males may feed fledglings while females begin the next nesting attempt. They have two to three broods per year, rarely four.

Their diet consists mostly of seeds, insects, berries. Diet is quite varied. They feed on many insects, including beetles, true bugs, grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants, flies, and many others, also spiders, centipedes, and snails. Most of their diet is vegetable matter, including seeds of weeds and grasses, waste grain, leaf buds, flowers, and many berries and wild fruits. Young are fed mostly insects.

While nesting, the male sings to defend nesting territory, actively attacking intruding males (and attacking his own reflection in windows and mirrors). In courtship, male and female raise heads high, sway back and forth while singing softly; male often feeds female early in breeding season. The female sings mainly in spring before the start of nesting. The nest is usually well hidden in dense shrubs, vines, or low trees, placed 3 – 10 feet above ground, sometimes higher. Nest (built by female) is open cup made of twigs, weeds, grass, bark strips, leaves, rootlets, lined with fine grass or hair.

Nearly any bird feeder you put out ought to attract Northern Cardinals (as long as you live within their range), but they particularly seem to use sunflower seeds. Leave undergrowth in your backyard or around the edges, and you may have cardinals nesting on your property.

Here are some cool facts about cardinals:

– Only a few female North American songbirds sing, but the female Northern Cardinal does, and often while sitting on the nest. This may give the male information about when to bring food to the nest. A mated pair shares song phrases, but the female may sing a longer and slightly more complex song than the male.
– Many people are perplexed each spring by the sight of a cardinal attacking its reflection in a window, car mirror, or shiny bumper. Both males and females do this, and most often in spring and early summer when they are obsessed with defending their territory against any intruders. Birds may spend hours fighting these intruders without giving up. A few weeks later, as levels of aggressive hormones subside, these attacks should end.
– The male cardinal fiercely defends its breeding territory from other males. When a male sees its reflection in glass surfaces, it frequently will spend hours fighting the imaginary intruder.
– The oldest recorded Northern Cardinal was a female, and was 15 years, 9 months old when she was found in Pennsylvania.

Mighty House Mouse Update

Well, he’s baaaack!

Another trap destroyed. I checked on my traps, and sure enough, another broken trap. One of my brand new ones. Sooner or later, I’m going to get down to the bottom of this.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Who was the last Boston Bruins player to score 100 points or more before David Pastrnak’s 113 in 2022-23?

Answer
Brad Marchand, 100, in 2018-19.

FOR YOUR HEALTH: Holiday Stress-Management Tips for Young Adults

The holidays are supposed to be a time of joy, celebration, and togetherness. But for most people, the holiday season is definitely not the jolliest time of the year. Young people in particular find the holidays stressful: A Healthline survey found that 65 percent of Gen Z were stressed out by the holiday season, a higher number than either millennials or Boomers.

What makes this season so difficult? “Family drama” was one of the top reasons cited in the survey, along with finances and struggles with eating and exercise. Grief and loss can also feel particularly intense during the holidays. For young people who are dealing with trauma, anxiety, depression, substance use disorder, or another mental health issue, the challenges of the holidays can make symptoms worse. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, two-thirds of those with mental health concerns report that the holidays make their condition worse.

Real life is a lot messier and more complicated than a Hallmark holiday movie. In addition, mental health during the holidays often takes a nosedive because we’re thrown off our usual self-care schedules. However, committing to simple yet effective holiday stress-management strategies can help young adults navigate the season without falling prey to the holiday blues.

Because family is traditionally at the center of holiday activities, family relationships—or the lack of these relationships—are one of the biggest factors contributing to the holiday blues.

This season can be especially hard for those who have troubled relationships with other family members. The same is true for those who are no longer in contact with family due to childhood trauma or other issues, such as a parent’s mental health or substance abuse struggles. The imagery of loving families that is everywhere at this time of year can bring up feelings of loneliness, grief, anger, and disappointment.

But even families who have strong and caring relationships can hit snags at this time of year. Spending lots of time together in close quarters often brings up old conflicts and disagreements. It can even trigger age regression, when young adults who are returning home after living on their own can fall back into the rebellious behaviors they had as teens. That’s particularly true if their parents haven’t adjusted yet to treating them as fellow adults rather than children.

Seven Tips to Reduce Holiday Stress

1. Create healthy boundaries

Boundaries can apply to relationships as well as self-care. For example, you may need to create boundaries around how much time you will spend with certain family members who can be emotionally triggering. Or you may need to set limits on your alcohol consumption if you’ll be going to lots of holiday parties with friends and family.

2. Get enough sleep

A recent study found that sleep is one of the top three pillars of mental health and well-being for young adults.

3. Remember that you’re not the only one feeling the holiday blues

You are not alone – struggles with mental health during the holidays are very common. The recognition that “it’s okay to not be okay” is just as true during the holiday season. Practice mindfulness and self-compassion, and reach out to loved ones who will understand and empathize with the emotions you’re experiencing.

4. Maintain your regular exercise schedule

Exercise is proven to increase stress resilience and reduce stress hormones.

5. Do something for others

Research shows that volunteering offers mental and physical health benefits, and there are lots of opportunities to do so during the holiday season.

6. Set realistic expectations

If the holidays tend to be a challenging time for you and your family, don’t expect that everything will change this year – even if you’ve changed and grown. Rather than striving for a picture-perfect holiday season, recognize and prepare for the moments that might be hard.

7. Focus on what’s meaningful for you about the holiday season

Whether or not you relate to the religious significance of the winter holidays, you can find a sense of meaning and authentic connection during this season – connection with yourself, others, and your greater community.

As we’ve seen, it’s not unusual to experience stress and holiday blues during this time of year. But if depressive symptoms are severe, or if they last longer than a week or two, the next step is to get a comprehensive mental health assessment and explore treatment options.

THE BEST VIEW: The pumpkin factor

by Norma Best Boucher

Fall isn’t a date on my calendar, the lowering of the outside temperature, nor the coloring of leaves.

Fall is the day I buy my heirloom pale blue Jarrahdale pumpkin.

I didn’t start out being highfalutin.

On the contrary, I started out modestly years ago with a garden next to our house in Waterville where I grew green beans, yellow waxed beans, stunted carrots, ears and ears of too small yellow corn which I never ate because every year the raccoons raided all of the corn the night before we harvested (phew), a multitude of cucumbers, dozens of zucchinis, and hundreds of tomatoes.

No one warned me about how many tomatoes grew from 24 tomato plants fertilized with decades old cow manure.

Although I enjoyed eating all of the vegetables I grew, my favorite plants to grow were the gigantic sunflowers and the many orange pumpkins.

The sunflowers offered hours of enjoyment. Blue jays landed on the large flowers growing in the garden and heatedly pecked at the individual seeds causing the long, thick sunflower stems to sway back and forth with the weight of the birds.

Once I put sunflower heads on our front door for decoration and heard the loud “tap, tap, tap” on the wooden door. Two and three blue jays at a time pecking to dislodge the large flower seeds sounded more like a woodpecker drumming out his territorial dominance.

My favorite plant was the pumpkin.

At first, I grew the ordinary pumpkins which matured in a variety of shapes. My young son repositioned them daily to prevent any really oddly shaped pumpkins. We didn’t want any flat spots formed from where the pumpkin settled on the ground.

Later, I added the New England Pie Pumpkins, which were smaller, heavy, quite tasty, and perfectly pumpkin shaped. These always perfectly shaped pumpkins certainly gave their part of the garden a very regimented appearance.

As the garden leaves withered and browned, the lively orange toned pumpkins kept the dying garden alive with color.

My quest for the perfect pumpkin in Florida wasn’t an easy task. I first bought a very large, beautiful orange pumpkin for my fall display of “one pumpkin.” Within two weeks, the sun had literally cooked the inside of the vegetable giving my patio a very distinctive pumpkin pie aroma. The large pumpkin sunk from within.

I borrowed a neighbor’s cart to haul it away to the dumpster.

I thought about displaying a ceramic pumpkin or even a lightweight plastic pumpkin, but I was leery that ceramic would break or that plastic would fly away into someone else’s yard.

I reluctantly settled on a wooden stake with a painted pumpkin, but as realistic as it looked from a distance, up close and personal was a different story.

Then, one day while in the grocery store, I fell in love. Among the many differently colored pumpkins, I saw the one I wanted – a large, slightly flattened, round, almost perfectly vertically grooved BLUE pumpkin.

I had to have it. Who cared if it cooked from the inside? I was going to enjoy this pumpkin for as long as possible if for no other reason than my favorite color is BLUE.

From the grocery store bagger’s lifting and placing the pumpkin onto my car seat to my husband’s carrying and placing the pumpkin onto its place of honor, a multicolored earth toned upside down flowerpot, that globular BLUE fruit was MINE.

At first neighbors marveled:

“Wow!”

“Never saw anything like it.”

“A blue what?”

As time passed, people stopped less often. Then, as not just the weeks went by, but as the months flew by, neighbors questioned:

“That thing hasn’t rotted yet?”

“It must be full of ants.”

“Are you sure it’s real?”

Even I grew tired of the blue pumpkin. I had bought the amazing blue wonder in mid-September. The date was now May 15. I was eight months older, but the blue pumpkin hadn’t aged one bit. The blue had faded a little, but the skin was taut, and the flesh was still solid to the tap.

There was only one thing to do. I borrowed my neighbor’s cart and hauled the formerly loved pumpkin to the dumpster.

I went on with my life for the next four months and forgot about this experience. That is until yesterday when I was shopping at the grocery store. I turned the corner, and there they were…a multitude of pumpkins in varying shapes and colors.

I perused the display. Behind three white pumpkins was another of my beloved perfectly shaped large BLUE pumpkins…calling my name. The lure was just too much.

I moved the white pumpkins aside and somehow lifted the heavy BLUE sphere onto the bottom shelf of my grocery cart. Furtively, I checked out, lifted the pumpkin onto the car seat and then finally placed the beautiful BLUE orb onto its place of honor atop the flowerpot which had remained empty for the last four months.

I discovered – through the internet, no less – that the BLUE Jarrahdale pumpkin may last for up to 12 months. Something has to be done.

In the garden, pumpkins and sunflowers are companion plants. Although this new pumpkin is no longer growing, maybe sunflowers could benefit from being planted nearby.

I am going to plant two, four, maybe even six giant sunflower plants in my small sandy area surrounding my “one pumpkin” display. In 12 sunny Florida months I might even be able to get two plantings of sunflowers.

Let the Florida blue jays work for their winter seeds while they swing and sway on the flower heads, and, once again, I may smile as I watch them from my window.

This year I will not chuck the pumpkin when I tire of its beauty. I will, instead, harvest the seeds, dry them, and send them off to Maine gardening friends so they may enjoy a regimented area of their garden with nearly perfectly shaped BLUE pumpkins.

Any takers?

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Movies, TV and Christmas carols

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Killing Them Softly

I recently viewed a 2012 movie, Killing Them Softly, starring Brad Pitt as a gangland enforcer, James Gandolfini as a Mafia hitman and Ray Liotta as the host for a mob protected high stakes polka game, with a very good supporting cast.

The plot features a businessman in need of extra funds who hires two inept hoods to rob the polka game. They initially get away but then one of them brags about the heist to the wrong individual and the repercussions rear their ugly head.

Despite the constant foul mouthed dialog and jokes, and the super hideous violence (maybe because of it), the movie was a box office success, which doesn’t reflect well on cinematic tastes. Ever since the emergence of such directors as Martin Scorcese, Quentin Tarantino etc., audiences relish the stylized combos of bloodshed and comedy displayed in Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, the Sopranos series etc., while the craft of the old Hollywood classics such as Citizen Kane, The Best Years of Our Lives, Vertigo and In the Heat of the Night – to name a few examples – is tossed aside.

To their credit, Pitt, Gandolfini and Liotta delivered superb performances but the movie still left a bad taste.

CSI

A certain amount of graphic realism was seen in the CSI series, which ran from 2000 to 2015 and, after a six-year hiatus, came back as CSI: Vegas. The difference lies in the episodes being more edifying on the gathering and analysis of evidence found at crime scene and less of violence and foul language for its own sake.

I am more than halfway through the first season and particularly enjoy the acting of William Petersen, Jorja Fox, Marg Helgensberger and Paul Guilfoyle as the investigative team.

Especially interesting is the use of facial reconstruction as part of the forensics. One episode that stood out involves a woman’s skull found inside the crawl space underneath the basement of a house by the plumber repairing a leaky pipe and the reconstruction of her face using computer graphics, the recognition of the missing woman and the resulting arrest of her murderer.

Christmas Carols

A mid-’50s lp, Epic LC 3074, and entitled simply Christmas Carols, features very expressive a capella performances of a mixture of well-known and rarely heard season selections by the Royal Male Choir of Holland, a group that was founded in 1883 and numbers 170 men.

Bing Crosby

On June 22, 1950, Bing Crosby recorded a ten-inch Decca 78 featuring renditions of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Teddy Bear’s Picnic that were captivatingly arranged, as was so consistently typical of Crosby’s sessions for Decca. In terms of quantity and quality, this singer with his over 4,000 recordings achieved a rare standard and sold more records than Sinatra, Presley and the Beatles combined.

Also Sinatra, Presley and the Beatles were among Crosby’s most loyal fans.

SCORES & OUTDOORS: The mighty house mouse

Common house mouse

Roland D. Halleeby Roland D. Hallee

Growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, we used to watch Saturday morning cartoons, after we finally got a TV in 1958. We also saw them at the State Theater during Saturday kids’ shows. One of my favorite characters was Mighty Mouse, and how he would always get the better of Sylvester, the cat. Well, for some reason, this year, for the first time in the 47 years my wife and I have lived in our current home, we are experiencing a showdown with house mice.

I have managed to get one, but like the old saying goes, “If there’s one, there’s more.”

Well, another one has made its presence known. And I call it, Mighty House Mouse. Why? I have laid out two TomCat traps where I have seen signs of their presence. Both have been tripped, without the bait being touched. But the reason I call this mouse Mighty House Mouse is because both of the traps have been broken. The housing where the spring attaches is completely, and cleanly, broken off. What kind of mouse does this?

After all, the adult body length is about three inches and they weigh approximately 1-5/8 ounces.

The house mouse has been domesticated as the pet or fancy mouse, and as the laboratory mouse, which is one of the most important model organisms in biology and medicine.

A recent study revealed that the modern day house mouse emerged from an ancestral population in Indian subcontinent sometimes around 700,000 years ago. From there, this ancestral population migrated to Iran around 360,000 years ago and then to Afghanistan around 260,000 years ago.

House mice usually run, walk, or stand on all fours, but when eating, fighting, or orienting themselves, they rear up on their hind legs with additional support from the tail – a behavior known as “tripoding”. Mice are good jumpers, climbers, and swimmers, and are generally considered to be thigmotactic, i.e. usually attempt to maintain contact with vertical surfaces.

Mice are mostly nocturnal; they are averse to bright lights. The average sleep time of a captive house mouse is reported to be 12.5 hours per day. They live in a wide variety of hidden places near food sources, and construct nests from various soft materials. Mice are territorial, and one dominant male usually lives together with several females and young. Dominant males respect each other’s territories and normally enter another’s territory only if it is vacant. If two or more males are housed together in a cage, they often become aggressive unless they have been raised together from birth.

House mice primarily feed on plant matter, but are omnivorous. Mine seem to like bread, crackers, and, of all things, popping corn. I have seen an area where they hoard the corn. They eat their own faeces to acquire nutrients produced by bacteria in their intestines. House mice, like most other rodents, do not vomit.

The social behavior of the house mouse is not rigidly fixed into species-specific patterns but is instead adaptable to the environmental conditions, such as the availability of food and space. This adaptability allows house mice to inhabit diverse areas ranging from sandy dunes to apartment buildings.

In open areas such as shrubs and fields, the house mouse population is known as noncommensal. These populations are often limited by water or food supply and have large territories. Female-female aggression in the noncommensal house mouse populations is much higher, reaching a level generally attributed to free-ranging species. Male aggression is also higher in noncommensal populations. In commensal populations, males come into contact with other males quite frequently due to high population densities and aggression must be mediated or the risk of injury becomes too great.

In both agricultural and urban environments house mice are often preyed upon by the domestic cat. House mice usually live less than one year in the wild, due to a high level of predation and exposure to harsh environments. In protected environments, however, they often live two to three years.

House mice usually live in proximity to humans, in or around houses or fields. The house mouse first arrived in the Americas in the early 16th century. It was carried aboard on the ships of Spanish explorers and Conquistadors. About one hundred years later, it arrived in North America with French fur traders and English colonists. They have since been spread to all parts of the globe by humans.

Mice are widespread pest organisms, and one of the most common rodents to infest human buildings. They commonly forage outdoors during the spring and summer, but retreat into buildings through the autumn and winter to seek warmth and food. They typically feed on unattended food, leftovers and garden produce. Their foraging risks the contamination and degradation of food supplies, and can also spread other pests such as fleas, ticks and lice.

When infesting homes, house mice may pose a risk of damaging and compromising the structure of furniture and the building itself. They gnaw various materials to file down their growing teeth and keep the length under control. Common damage includes gnawed electrical wires, marks on wooden furniture and construction supporting elements, and textile damage.

House mice can sometimes transmit diseases, contaminate food, and damage food packaging. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides a list with diseases transmitted by rodents, only a few of the diseases are transmitted through the house mouse.

In folk culture the importance of mice as a house and agricultural pest resulted in a development of a variety of mouse-related rituals and stories in world’s cultures. The Ancient Egyptians had a story about “The mouse as vizier”.

Many South Slavs had a traditional annual “Mouse Day” celebration. In the eastern Balkans (most of Bulgaria, North Macedonia, the Torlak districts of Serbia), the “Mouse Day” (Bulgarian: Миши ден, Мишин ден) was celebrated on October 9 of the Julian calendar (corresponds to October 27 of the Gregorian calendar in the 20th and 21st centuries), the next day after the feast of Saint Demetrius. In the western Balkans (Bosnia, Croatia), the Mouse Day would usually be celebrated in the spring, during the Maslenitsa week or early in the Lent.

Since I replaced the broken traps, I have seen no signs of the little rodents. By securing their food source, and placing some repellants, along with the traps, we seem to have driven them away.

That remains to be seen.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

On the Boston Celtics’ logo, what does the leprechaun have in his left hand?

Answer
A cane.

CRITTER CHATTER: The dangers of glue traps

Red squirrel

by Jayne Winters

I knew immediately what I wanted to write about this month after seeing a young red squirrel recently admitted to Duck Pond Wildlife Rehab – he was the sole survivor of his litter mates who had come in contact with a glue trap. Although typically used to control or eliminate insects, mice, and rats, these horrible traps are advertised as, “a smart alternative to poisonous bait…non-toxic, easy to use and cost effective.” In reality, they are an ineffective, cruel and dangerous way to rid your home of pests.

Also known as glue board traps or trays, they are simply flat pieces of cardboard or plastic covered with a specially designed sticky adhesive, either scented (such as peanut butter) or unscented. They are placed on floors flush against the wall where rodents often travel. Because it appears to be part of the floor, a mouse will walk across it and immediately become stuck, unable to free itself until it eventually dies: an often agonizingly slow death by starvation or suffocation. The Humane Society states, “…they are responsible for more suffering than virtually any other wildlife control product on the market.” PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, notes it is “one of the cruelest methods of killing animals in existence today.”

Although their popularity is in part due to claims of being safe to use, there are concerns. If an animal is still alive while glue-trapped, people often try to beat it to death. This is inhumane and carries the risk of being bitten or scratched by the terrified victim.

Manufacturers suggest boards be thrown in the trash even if live animals are stuck to the surface, but they fail to mention the animals are left to struggle and die exhausted or injured days later. As observed with other trapped animals, “they have been known to bite through their limbs in an attempt to free themselves.” These traps are also dangerous to household pets, no matter their size. Removal may require surgery by a veterinarian, but even if a cat or dog manages to pull the trap or tray off, it likely will lose fur and/or skin. In addition, the US Centers for Disease Control advise against using glue traps because they increase people’s exposure to a variety of pathogens transmitted by animal feces and urine.

Despite bans in several countries and territories, the US has placed no regulations on their use and has provided very little consumer education about their potential dangers. Hundreds of companies, however, prohibit their sale, including Target, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Rite Aid, CVS, and Walgreens.

Other animals unintentionally trapped on these glue boards include chipmunks, opossums, birds, lizards, snakes, frogs, turtles – pretty much anything that lands on their surface. If you find an animal or bird caught on one of these traps, please consider it an emergency and contact either a vet or wildlife rehabber. Trying to release it yourself could cause further injury to the animal or possibly to you or anyone else attempting to help. Even if the animal doesn’t display injury, it is scared and in a stressful situation.

Killing wildlife is not a long-term solution for population control because survivors breed faster and more will move in to take the place of their deceased friends. Control of rodent populations should focus on removal of the cause and source, i.e., access and food. Plug entry holes with foam sealant, steel wool, hardware cloth, ammonia-scented rags/cotton balls or moth balls; store food items (especially pet food) in metal or airtight containers with lids, rather than in bags or boxes that can be chewed; remove clutter, grass clippings and weeds that might be used for nest building; pick up fallen fruit and veggies; store grills, outdoor furniture and wood piles away from buildings; and don’t feed wildlife, as grains and seeds will attract unwanted visitors. There are a variety of humane traps that catch critters alive for release away from your home, but free them in their natural territory so they can find shelter, food and water. If lethal methods for rodent control are recommended, at least be sure they die quickly.

The red squirrel at Duck Pond was carefully removed from the glue trap, but unfortunately left fur behind and its tail gunked up with glue. Don had been advised by another rehabber to apply PAM Cooking Spray to the fur, followed after 15-20 minutes by gentle cleaning with Dawn detergent (yes, just like in the duckling commercial!). Three weeks later, Little Red is thriving and the fur is slowly growing back on his stumpy tail. Don asked that I mention if anyone has questions about removing glue or any adhesive from an animal, to please give him a call.

Regarding the chipmunk and grey squirrel that were hit by vehicles in October, we had a totally different outcome than expected. The chipmunk, which was barely moving and just beginning to eat on its own, has survived and is very active, with a good appetite and normal grooming habits. The squirrel, although by outward appearances seemingly to have suffered only minor injuries, did not survive. He apparently succumbed to severe internal organ damage or failure.

Don and his volunteers greatly appreciate other rehabbers who continue to generously provide assistance to help keep critter care at Duck Pond manageable. Please check the following web sites to see if there is one near you: https://www.mainevetmed.org/wildlife-rehabilitation or https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fish-wildlife/wildlife/living-with-wildlife/orphaned-injured-wildlife/index.html – Donald Cote operates Duck Pond Wildlife Care Center on Rte. 3 in Vassalboro. It is a non-profit state permitted rehab facility which is supported by his own resources and outside donations. Mailing address: 1787 North Belfast Ave., Vassalboro ME 04989 TEL: (207) 445-4326. Please note the previous e-mail address is no longer monitored.